Annie Leonard talks about the path to a healthy community, taking back our democracy and the three things that make people happy.

Annie Leonard has spent twenty years investigating where our stuff comes from, how we use it and where it goes. She is the creator of The Story of Stuff project, a series of films that discuss democracy, water bottles, cap and trade, electronics and cosmetics. She has traveled to 40 countries and visited hundreds of factories and dumps. Leonard has observed the effects of over and under-consumption all over the world, and is dedicated to building a clean, green, healthy, safe community for everyone.

We caught up with her recently to talk about how the Staten Island dump, Pacific Northwestern clear cuts and planned obsolescence helped fuel the passion that is now her career.

How did you start down this road of activism? What influenced you and when?

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and I went camping a lot as a kid. I loved the feeling of being in forests. There was something about it that felt so grounded and so good. So, when I saw these vicious, huge clear cuts, I remember feeling that something is wrong, so I planned to be a forest activist when I grew up. I went to college in New York City, which is a funny place to go to be a forest activist, but it turned out to be really smart.

I would walk to school every day, and there would be these huge, literally shoulder-high, piles of garbage. And I started wondering, what was in all those bags? So I started looking in garbage and I was amazed to see that it was almost all paper. My beloved forests are being chopped down to be made into paper, and the paper is going into the garbage, but where does it go afterward? So I took a field trip to the dump on Staten Island where New York City’s garbage goes. I really recommend everyone go visit the dump. It’s a fascinating thing to see the back end of where all our stuff comes out.

I’ll never forget this moment. I stood there as a sophomore in college looking out at this pile of waste. As far as I could see there were shoes and appliances and books and food and everything you could imagine, and I thought, “My God, we have a real problem. We have built our economy on the unsustainable flow of materials from resources to waste.”

So I decided to figure it out. I studied garbage and waste management in school. I went to Washington DC, worked for environmental groups and spent the next twenty years traveling around the world visiting factories where our stuff is made, visiting dumps, and interviewing people about toxins and chemicals and pollution and garbage and consumption and figuring out how to put the pieces together to understand what was going on. And that’s what I summarized in The Story of Stuff film and book.

When did you create The Story of Stuff and what was your goal?

For about ten years, I had been practicing different ways of talking about where our stuff comes from and where it goes, and I was finding that the more that I learned about it and the more my expertise grew, the less I could communicate with people in a way that they found accessible and relevant.

I tried to figure out if there was a way we could talk about environmental issues that’s fun and easy and welcoming and not all science, charts and graphs, and not all about guilt and fear and shame. Guilt and fear and shame are not powerful places to hang out, yet so many environmentalists bombard the public with those things.

So I developed this talk and turned it into The Story of Stuff film. I must have given that talk a hundred times, and every time, someone would say, can you make a movie of this? So, after three years of resisting, I did the talk one last time and a friend of mine filmed it. We took the film to Free Range Studios, who are these absolute geniuses at capturing different issues in these do-gooder films online.

We put it online free in December 2007. Our goal – our dream – was that 50,000 people would watch it. We thought if we could get 50,000 people to watch this film, then we could really get people talking about this stuff. To our utter amazement, we got 50,000 people in one day. We are now at over 12 million views of the original film and we’ve made additional films and now we’ve had 20 million views total. All of our films are these short, fun films that look at really serious issues about what’s wrong with our materials economy.

I have been so excited about the response, because these are difficult issues to talk about, everything from planned obsolescence (where product designers make stuff designed to break) to corporate influence in democracy. We’ve found a fun way to talk about it and people are watching and having these amazing conversations all over the world. The films have been watched in over 200 countries, shown in schools and churches and synagogues and festivals and conferences – it’s so cool to see all the ways people are using them to spark much-needed conversation.

Where do your ideas for topics come from?

I have been looking at how we make, use and throw away stuff for a long time, so I have lots of things I’d love to talk to people about, but first we pick issues we feel are big chunks of the problem, things we need to be talking about. We also pick things that tend to be technical or there’s just not a lot of discussion about it – things like manufactured demand or planned obsolescence or corporate hijacking of our democracy. We also focus on what our viewers want to hear. We get hundreds and hundreds of emails every week and I really like to get a sense of what people really want to understand more about.

I would talk about how it is absolutely possible to build a safe, healthy, fair society – I am absolutely convinced of it. The technology exists, the research exists, we absolutely could do it, but people would raise their hands and say, yes, but we can’t because we are butting up against the coal industry and the oil industry and corporations have too much control of Congress and we can’t get good laws passed because corporations get mad. So we made a film about corporate power and some steps we can take to reign in corporate power in our democracy so we can take our democracy back.

Our next film is called The Story of Broke. Wherever I go and talk about how we can make a safe, healthy, fair and fun society, people write back and say, “There’s no money for that. It’s a nice idea, safe products and clean energy – but there’s no money for that.” But the truth is – there IS money for it. There’s a lot of money for it. It’s actually our money, because it’s our government and we’re giving that money right now to nuclear reactors, loan guarantees, and enormous subsidies for incredibly profitable oil and gas companies. So we should get involved with what’s happening to it. And right now it’s being used to prop up the dinosaur economy and what we should use it for instead is to build a healthy, fair future.

We have more ideas and requests that we can possibly do. We want to watch the response to each film and pay attention to what’s happening in society, and we really want to respond to our viewers. We’re trying to provide the information that they need to engage in the conversation. One of the things we definitely want to look at in one of the next couple of films is solutions. We want to really focus on how many solutions are out there – there are so many, it’s just incredible how possible it is to make clean, green, safe, healthy stuff.

What direct impact has The Story of Stuff had?

It’s interesting with online work is that you don’t really know what direct impact it has really had. Part of what we do know is anecdotal. We hear lots and lots of stories from people who say, “I never thought about where our stuff comes from and where it goes until I saw your films. And because of that film, I am rethinking the role of stuff in my life. I am looking for ways to buy stuff used, to share things, to find happiness through other ways than going shopping.” Thousands and thousands of incredibly heartwarming stories like that make us really happy.

We can track how many people watch it online and people have watched it in every single country except one in the middle of Africa. We can track what resources they download and those materials have been downloaded tens of thousands of times. So we absolutely know that we are contributing to thinking and talking about these issues. The only way we’ll really know if it’s working is if we can build up enough power in this country to demand a clean, green and healthy economy. Then we’ll know that we’ve won.

If you could tell everyone in the world (or just the U.S.) to make one change in their lives to make the biggest impact, what would it be?

I think if I could just pick one, what I would say is to develop the infrastructure and culture for sharing. There are lots of solutions to the problems we face that are very complex and technical, but there are also some that are very simple, and bringing back sharing is one.

As we’re in tough economic times and as we’re bumping up against the planet’s limits, we are going to have to learn how to live well with less stuff. It’s crazy in this country for EVERY single house to have a wheelbarrow, a power drill and a lawn mower and a cupcake tin and all these things that you only use a few times a year. So if we share, it means we have to mine less metals, cut less trees, we can make our resources go further if one lawn mower or power drill can serve six families instead of just one.

Perhaps the most important part of sharing is that it’s better for our happiness. Because if you’re going to share something, you have to talk to people, you have to have friends, you have to have community. And the more we can develop friends and community and get out of our social isolation that this country is experiencing, the less we’re going to feel the need to go out and go shopping because we can find fun and meaning in our sense of community. It’s better for the planet, better for our economy, and way more fun.

Speaking of possessions, what is your most cherished possession?

You know what I really love? I love my clothesline. Because I’m often so busy, having a clothesline in my backyard makes me pause twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon, to just spend ten minutes standing in my garden. It makes me feel connected to the natural environment because the sun is drying my clothes. It just makes me slow down and take a breath and just have a moment to reflect on my day and have gratitude for all that I have. When I travel, I even take a little clothesline with me.

Who are your real-life heroes?

People often ask how I remain so hopeful and it’s because there are so many people helping to make the world better in so many ways. But for me, the real heroes are the everyday moms who are just trying to get dinner on the table and get their kids to do well in school, who are standing up and taking a stand against corporate polluters. People like Lois Gibbs. She was the mother at Love Canal (a town near Niagra Falls, New York).

For decades, a chemical company had poured their toxic waste into a canal and covered it up with dirt. Then they sold it to a school district for some nominal fee. Lois Gibbs and the other moms began noticing a very high rate of rare and very serious diseases, a lot of miscarriages, and kids getting really sick. She figured it out, about this toxic waste that was seeping into the school as well as into a bunch of the basements in this town.

She was a mom without a college degree in any of these issues, and no scientific training. She started putting together the data and faced enormous ostracism from the community. She risked threats of violence and she still demanded that the government come and clean up the mess, and move the people out of there whose houses were built on this toxic waste site.

It’s people like that, who, when life is hard enough, are able to still find the strength to stand up to the forces against us, and demand something better. They inspire me so much. I just feel like if they can do it, I can certainly do it.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Two things. I am very proud that The Story of Stuff has been so well-received. I am enormously happy that we figured out a way to talk about complex issues in a fun way.

I am also happy about how I have been able to integrate many of the lessons I’ve learned into my own life. So that my life, while far from perfect, has been made better by changes I’ve made because of the things I’ve learned from doing this research. For example, there are six households on my block that are very, very good friends and we share everything from childcare to cutting each other’s hair to a pickup truck.

When people ask me how do I know sharing and having community is better than having massive credit card debit and going to the mall, I know because I live it. I can speak with a real authenticity, that sharing, that taking meaning through community and making the world better is just way more fun than being on this hyper-consumption, consumer mania treadmill. I’m happy with my work and I’m happy with my community.

I watched Citizens United v. FEC. It is particularly relevant since we are facing an election in the next year. Do you think that people will stand up and demand change, or are they so discouraged that they won’t try, and no change will happen for a long time?

I think, both. I think people are already starting to speak up, like this amazing protest in front of the White House last month about the Tar Sands pipeline. I watched it feeling so hopeful, because they weren’t just Greenpeacers and Rainforest Action Network types, there were people who said they never attended a protest before, but they just couldn’t take it any longer. They realized that corporations all over Capitol Hill are making their voices heard, and if we are going to make our voices heard, it is time for really dire action. I saw one interview with a rancher who said he’d just had it with the government’s inability to act on climate change. I saw a grandmother from Texas. It was just so inspiring to see regular folks saying “I’ve just had enough. I’m ready to put my body on the line to have my concern for the climate be heard.”

I feel very hopeful about that kind of things that’s happening all over the world – people getting involved. I also think people are frustrated, especially after this last presidential election when people volunteered and donated money and knocked on doors and did all this work for change, and there hasn’t been enough change. And so I’m worried that people are going to choose to check out of the political process and I appeal to them – this is NOT the time to do that. The most important battle that we will ever face in our lifetime is wrestling back our democracy from the corporate interests. We have got to stay engaged, we have got to not hand over our democracy.

We have to really encourage people we know to get involved in making our voices heard. It is absolutely true that these super-rich, big companies are controlling the dialogue right now, but there are more of us, than of them. So every day that we do not voice our opinions, we’re actually voting for the status quo to continue. We’ve simply got to engage.

This country is way too incredible and wonderful and valuable to just hand off to people who don’t actually care about it. So we need to take our country back. And then, once we’ve done that, we can deal with the kinds of issues that I talked about in The Story of Stuff. We can make our products safe and our schools good and our environment clean. But we’ve got to get the power so our government is working for us, instead of the big companies.

What is your idea of true happiness?

It’s hard for me to separate my own ideas and thoughts from all the data that I’ve read. I’ve done a huge amount of looking into what actually makes people happy. I was very interested in the fact that we have more, better, cooler stuff than at any time throughout history, but our happiness levels are actually going down.

It turns out that there are three things that make people happy. The first one is the quality of our social relationships and having friends and family and community. The second thing is having leisure time and not working around the clock. We work so many hours in this country. We work about 300 hours more per year than our counterparts in Europe do. So we’re exhausted and socially isolated. The third big one is having meaning in life.

That resonated so much with me. For me, true happiness is if everyone on the whole planet has those things. A healthy, strong community, some leisure time, so we can invest in art, in community, in family, the environment, civic activities, and having a purpose in life.

Visit The Story of Stuff to view the videos and be notified about new topics.

Images: The Story of Stuff Project

We learned that we need better green messaging, cities are where we’re going, and children should spend time in nature early and often.

The first annual SXSW Eco conference was a success by many measures. The number of attendees exceeded the organizers’ expectations, the sessions were lead by well-known industry pioneers and up-and-comers, and the discussion was informative and productive. Here were some of the highlights we found most applicable.

Senior Editor, Andrea Newell:

The green movement is losing the messaging war.

As Anna wrote earlier, the green movement is facing the sad truth that people aren’t moved to combat climate change when confronted with grim statistics, alarming graphs scolding and guilt. It isn’t working. We need a new way to connect with people and get them to care.

Knowing your audience is Business 101, yet green has promoted a generally one-size-fits-all rationale. Comedy Central’s Kelleigh Dulany, VP of Corporate Responsibility talked about how she narrowed the focus of the message to Comedy Central’s demographic, made it relevant to them, and, of course, delivered it with humor. Dulany said, “Make the change small, make the result big and make the impact local.”

Due to what many feel is alarmist green marketing, people get the idea that if they are not significantly changing their lifestyle to be green, they are not doing enough. So they do nothing. The truth is that if many people made small changes in their conservation habits, that would make a bigger impact than a few people making big changes. So, taking baby steps toward a greener lifestyle still helps.

Most of us will live in or near cities by mid-century.

As our population grows, it will naturally consume more space. By 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will live in or near cities. Cities will expand because that is where the jobs, education and resources are. The turning point will be how those cities react to their increasing size and population. Infrastructure is crucial. Sustainable cities in the future will include better public transportation, bike trails, child-friendly spaces and quality education, good jobs, and access to healthy food.

In addition to planning for better cities, many metropolitan areas need to plan for environmental changes. Melanie Nutter, Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, projects that sea level will rise nearly 55 inches by the end of this century. For San Francisco, surrounded by water on three sides, this is a serious issue. The airport will be underwater, as will 99 miles of roadways. These are eventualities that she knows she must start planning for now. Amongst many aggressive environmental initiatives employed by the city, currently it leads the country in waste disposal (more than 77 percent is composted, recycled or reused) and has set a goal of zero waste by 2020.

Robin Rather, CEO of Collective Strength, Inc. makes the argument that we’re all in this together – cities, suburbs and rural areas. Our current us-versus-them mentality works against progress and change. She contends that we all have to face this problem united, whether we live in super-hip cities like San Francisco, cities in dire straits like Detroit, a Rhode Island suburb or rural Nebraska.

The children are our (environmental) future.

Several speakers and organizations have identified a new, desirable demographic to target – children. (Relatively) free of cynicism and unswayed by complicated charts, children easily believe that the environment is precious and important simply by spending time outside.

Keynote speaker Mark Tercek (The Nature Conservancy) fell in love with nature when he wanted his children to develop an appreciation for the outdoors and they planned many exploratory family trips. TNC supports programs that help urban youth who would not otherwise get to spend time outdoors participate in nature activities. Keynote speaker Philippe Cousteau certainly was brought up to love the water, but his foundation, EarthEcho International focuses on encouraging children to appreciate oceans and their ecosystems. Disney reaches out to children through Iron Way Films using creativity and imagination, and Comedy Central speaks to teens and young adults through humor.

It’s fitting. Children will inherit our planet, so the idea that they should learn to care about it early on is the right one. If children hold so much sway over parental buying decisions, perhaps they can exert influence over some greener behavior, too.

Marketing Manager, Anna Brones:

It’s all about food.

What is the one thing that connects us? The one thing that can get anybody talking? Food. ”We cherish our connections to food. We do not cherish our connections to turning off our lightbulbs,” said journalist Simran Sethi. If there is one thing that binds us, no matter what side of the political spectrum we are on, it’s what we eat, and when it comes to talking about the environment and our health, food is also one of the main common denominators.

We need to have uncomfortable conversations.

Population control, religion, race – these are all things that many of us steer clear of, but if we don’t bring these important issues to the table we are going to have serious missed opportunities. Roger-Mark De Souza of Population Action International made the connection between access to reproductive services and family planning and climate change; if we slow population growth we can limit carbon emissions. Here is an area with potential for significant impact, and yet it is one of the many important questions that won’t be on the table at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in 2012. If we continue to veer from the difficult questions, we can forget progress.

Listen before talking.

Action is needed, but to inspire action we have to know who we are talking to and how they will respond. This requires listening. Identify not only what communities need, but what they want. We live in an era that requires serious action, and we need it now, but if we continue to preach, we won’t effect real change. As Andrew Hutson of Environmental Defense Fund, pointed out, we cannot lead discussion “with ideas that threaten people’s core beliefs and values.”

Editor-in-Chief, Sara Ost:

Life, sustainability, and the pursuit of happiness.

“We need a Rosetta Stone” for green messaging was Gary Lawrence’s quote retweeted round the conference room in “Let’s Stop Talking about Sustainability: How Our Green Vocabulary Is Failing Us.”

We need a ring decoder, someone else said. We need to know how to market and message for our target audiences, another panelist noted. Well, yes.

What are these words that will work? We know what they aren’t. Green, eco, sustainability, environmentalism, climate change, global warming, conservation, cutting back, recycling, reusing, reducing and worst of all: sacrifice. Green doesn’t just have a sex appeal problem (on the level of Christian rap; besides, who wants to be a color?), it has a happiness problem.

We environmentalists can argue about consumption, mitigation versus paradigm shift, and technology until the grass fed cows come home. The fundamental problem is that green, The Movement, asks for sacrifice and gets snippy when it doesn’t happen. If sacrifice were going to work, it would have already. We live in a nation where the grand directive from our President in the weeks after 9/11 was for us to shop. I don’t think we’re at a point as a culture anymore where we can be asked to sacrifice in the face of very real problems – at least not without government involvement (think enforced rations circa WWII).

I’d like to remind people that Obama was able to win an election on simple appeals to our common humanity, to the good in us: “Change” and “Yes we can.”

In this particular panel, Lawrence asked us to consider appealing to the core emotions we all share. These are fear, aspiration and nostalgia. He then said what I consider to be the most profound thing I heard at the entire conference: “We are forgetting about happiness.”

It strikes me that we live in a culture where happiness is not a value – despite the fact that it’s written right into our Declaration of Independence. What American doesn’t recall having to memorize “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in grade school? Yet we don’t take  vacations. Paternity leave? What’s that? Hell, we barely get outside. Take a look at infant mortality rates, the number of adults on antidepressants, the media we consume – it’s awful. On the flight in, I happened to sit next to a woman who counsels Fortune 50 executives on communication and negotiation. She had that glow that really present, grateful, active people have. I was riveted by the earful she gave me about high stakes negotiating, and equally moved when she said, after a pause: “People who live here don’t see just how self-loathing we are. Other cultures are blown away by it.”

Of course, I also couldn’t help but think about Steve Jobs and his impact on the world during all of this green discussion and debate. People love Apple because there’s an element of happiness to the products. Design is soul.

It’s simple, but green needs some soul.

Image: Kewl

Fried food, two-stepping, honky tonk music, cowboy boots, and environmentalists? It might sound like an odd combo, but that’s South by Southwest Eco for you.

Last week, the EcoSalon team descended upon Austin, Texas to join in as a media partner in the first ever SXSW Eco, a three-day conference bringing together an “international audience of executive level decision makers from the public and private sectors, and thought leaders from academia.”

Just as SXSW has become a launching pad for new creative content and ideas fueled by a dynamic and diverse audience, the goal for SXSW Eco is to apply the same innovative approach to discussing the most pressing issues of our time. From food issues to the global population explosion to exploring what neuroscience can teach us about human behavior, the panelists and keynote speakers of the conference tackled these topics from a variety of perspectives, providing plenty of intellectual space to grow the conversation.

It’s one thing to gather a bunch of green-minded people into one space and get them to talk about pressing issues, and quite another to engage people outside of our circles on the same issues. “I am here to reach the people outside of the room, and I hope you do the same,” said Simran Sethi, journalist and Associate Professor University of Kansas. One of the main themes that stood out to us during the conference was how exactly we go about doing that. We all, at this point, acknowledge and understand that the green conversation has failed to become the green conversion. Going green has been a bust. But why? And where do we go from here? One popular sentiment floated into the Twitterverse from a panel on how green vocabulary has failed us was “We need a Rosetta Stone of green.”

So, is it changing how we talk about climate and the environment in our marketing efforts? Or are we so wired to consume more and deplete our natural resources, we must begin with psychology and science? Is dissonance and debate between greens – “skirmishes,” as the Nature Conservancy president Mark Tercek much prefers (bristling a bit under repeated criticism in the Q&A) – a healthy way to create space for forward progress, or a dangerously short-sighted distraction from the goals we share? Can we find ever find common ground that doesn’t politicize the issue of the environment and brings people from all points of the spectrum together to save ourselves?

The short answer is: yes. But it’s going to take work. And it’s going to take thinking creatively about how we talk about things like “green” and how we get people rallied around the issues. And it’s going to take words that don’t start with “g,” “s,” or “e.” (Green, sustainable, environmental.)

There’s hope, because when it comes to the environmental movement, we are talking about issues that affect everyone, which means that there’s plenty of room to improve and expand. We just have to rally around the right things, and become as sophisticated in our approach as Coca-Cola is at selling sugar water. As Roger-Mark De Souza, Vice President of Research Population Action International, said on a panel about pressing questions that won’t be on the Rio agenda in 2012, we have to make sure that we don’t have “missed opportunities.”

If we don’t want missed opportunities, we must start with communication. Facts and figures don’t work; relationships are everything. “We need to know our audience,” emphasized Brooke Buchanan, Director of Communications for Sustainability, Walmart. On the same panel, Jeff Nesbit, Executive Director of Climate Nexus, added “We have to learn other ways to communicate about these things so people actually care.” That means thinking creatively about how we frame environmental issues and how we communicate them to the larger public.

But it also means finding new ways to connect with people; focusing on the elements that transcend ideologies and political parties. One of those is food. In her presentation, Sethi presented a Wendell Berry quote:

Eaters, that is, must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used.

As Sethi put it, “we cherish our connections to food… we do not cherish our connections to turning off our lightbulbs.”

Change, as it turns out, is about inspiring and moving people to do, not only better, but to connect, and the more we separate ourselves from others – be it through messages or actions or lexicons – the more we risk failure.

But there is hope. And in a post-Austin recharge, we’re donning our new cowboy boots and feeling inspired to do good, and we hope you do, too. Just how do we go about this? And what were points of consensus and criticism at the first ever SXSW Eco? Look for that and more in parts 2 and 3 this week from EIC Sara Ost and News Editor Andrea Newell.

We’ll have more on SXSW Eco throughout the week, so check back!

Images: Anna Brones

Main image: Chris Tackett, social media editor of Treehugger, Alex Steffen, environmental thought leader and keynote speaker, Sara Ost, EIC of EcoSalon, Andrea Newell, News Editor of EcoSalon, and others gather at the joint Treehugger/EcoSalon/Triple Pundit happy hour in Austin, Texas.

The Gaia Hotel & Preserve is a Costa Rican getaway guaranteed to bring you back to nature.

This is the first installment in a new round of Places & Spaces here on EcoSalon. Look for writer Kara DiCamillo’s travel series here every Saturday.

Situated next to the Pacific Ocean in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica is the Gaia Hotel & Reserve, an adult only luxury boutique hotel and resort. Perhaps what we love most about this tropical getaway – aside from its modern amenities, lush views, and more conveniences than one could possibly need on vacation – is that it’s smack in the middle of a lowland coastal forest. The Gaia Hotel & Reserve is committed to preserving this natural land, and with their eco-friendly and socially responsible values it shows.

The preserve was originally a center for native orchid and endangered wildlife conservation, called Jardín Gaia and today the land is still home to many native species.

Guests at Gaia Hotel & Reserve are able to experience Costa Rica’s tican hospitality and natural beauty, be it taking in vistas of the volcanic mountain range and Pacific coastline while sitting by the pool, or interacting with nature first hand snorkeling, sea kayaking, surfing and river rafting or surrendering completely to your inner romantic with a horseback ride along the shore.

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

ColumnAs the saying goes, “Girls go to college to get more knowledge,” but do they care if their schools are eco-friendly?

My poor, misguided parents somehow failed to realize that getting me into a decent college was supposed to be their mission in life. In fact, they had practically no involvement at all in my college search, a process which was, by today’s standards, incredibly short and sweet. As a high school senior, I cut school with three friends and visited two colleges in one day. I chose those schools based largely on the fact they didn’t require application essays, and of my two choices, I selected the one that had the most promising male-to-female ratio. I’m pretty sure I spent more time selecting a prom dress than picking my college.

To say that things are different for kids today is a gross understatement. Helicopter parents (like me), now take a scorched earth approach to college applications, and we have all become wily experts in the art of marketing our children to institutions of higher learning. Parents now spend the better part of high school shepherding their offspring through a grueling application process that requires total commitment, massive amounts of time and energy, and a small army of paid professionals (tutors, essay consultants and private college advisors). I have spent the past two years schlepping my daughter to far-flung campuses where we have grinned like obsequious idiots at the perky tour guides who showed us around (A word to the wise: don’t waste your time trying to impress, or bribe, these young tour guides, since they have no say in the admissions process).

I have spent untold hours harassing my child until she fine-tuned her applications, studied for the SATs, and cranked out the gazillionth draft of her personal essay.  And she was on board for all of it, an equal partner in the madness, as she immersed herself in the process of becoming an informed consumer of U.S. universities. My daughter has combed the internet and college catalogs to create stacks of Excel spread sheets, meticulously categorizing schools according to size, location, fraternity life and academics.  But for all her research, my daughter had absolutely no idea where her college choices stood in terms of being green.

This is kind of surprising, given that college guidebooks have started aggressively ranking schools on their environmental profiles, rating them on their use of solar energy panels and the number of recycling bins scattered throughout the campus. Those college guidebooks are my daughter’s bibles, and from them she has learned and retained the tiniest and most obscure details about each school she’s applied to: she can tell you the exact number of undergraduates, the percentage of students who live off campus, and whether or not the school accepts transfer credits. She can describe each school’s personality, recite its mission statement almost verbatim, and tell you if it attracts hipsters, stoners, or meatheads. But when I asked her if she knew the schools’ green ratings, she was stumped, and extremely surprised to learn that she had missed an entire category of college information. Her friends, we would come to learn, were equally ignorant that data on sustainability was readily available in college guide books.

These are not kids who are indifferent to the environment. On the contrary, my daughter is the vice president of her school’s environmental awareness club, and her two best friends are co-presidents. My daughter and her friends recycle religiously and care passionately about global warming.  But there is simply no room in their jam-packed little heads to hold even one more fact about the colleges they are considering. With the economy in a shambles, these kids feel that their future success and happiness depends on being admitted to a “top” college, so they just can’t afford to worry about a school’s commitment to sustainable food sources and low-flush toilets.

Today’s high school seniors crave acceptance to colleges with big names and big endowments, schools that will impress future employers, schools that will give them a high-status decal to slap on their car’s rear window. Ironically, many of those decals will end up on the back of a Toyota Prius, because these kids  genuinely care if their car is environmentally friendly – they just don’t seem to care if their school is.

Image: ilamont.com

ExclusiveLast month, we began a series of articles looking at progressive issues in the world of equity investment. Our first piece, VCs, Angels and Investing in Women: What Are They Not Thinking?, explored the female business community’s relationship with those groups that play such a major role in driving our economy and business values. What follows is the second article in the series. It focuses on entrepreneurial investment in clean tech and green business.

At the opening of what would become the legendarily (and to some, notoriously) “pro-business” 1980s, President Ronald Reagan took clear and immediate steps to show his commitment to supply-side capitalism. He weakened and busted unions, initiated an unprecedented deregulation movement, and changed tax law to favor corporate interests. He was the champion of “trickle down” economics and, depending whether one sees the man as heroic or demonic, his legacy casts a bright light or dark shadow on us to this day.

In the shadow department, Reagan took an extremely dim view of alternative energy and the budding green movement, in general. This was in part evidenced by his halving the Solar Institute’s budget from 1980 to 1982 and, in 1986, symbolically removing solar panels from the White House.

The panels were clearly a symbolic gesture in the first place. President Jimmy Carter had placed them on the Pennsylvania Avenue mansion in 1979 as a display of American ingenuity and to send a message to that we, as a nation, were committed to exploring environmentally friendly ways to wean ourselves off foreign oil (a national addiction that continues to grip us 30 years later and would, less than a year after the panels went up, play a key role in Carter losing the Presidency). At the installation ceremony, Carter said: “No one can ever embargo the sun or interrupt its delivery to us.”

What was Ronald Reagan saying to the entrepreneurial community when he ripped those solar panels from the roof of the White House – and, through his policies, the nascent alternative energy industry up by its delicate new roots? How did this figure into a free market proposition? Was it a really pro-business? Or simply pro-existing-business?

Better Late than Never

Thirteen years after Ronald Reagan took office, Nancy Floyd got into the green-energy investment business. It was 1993 and it was, as she puts it, “a lonely game.”

Floyd had the chops: In 1982, she founded NFC Energy Corporation, one of the country’s first wind development firms. There she put together more than $30 million in projects and three years later sold the company for a 25-fold return on the original investment. Then, in 1985, she helped found PacTel Spectrum Services which was sold to IBM in 1987.

Yet despite the financial gravitas of the messenger (and a few others like her), the question in the early 1990s remained: when it came to raising green funds, were investors ready to listen?

“At the time, the only market driver was the deregulation of utilities,” remembers Floyd. “There were really no other players or considerations. And though the political winds had changed [with the entrance of the Clinton Administration], our crisis memories are short. OPEC, gas lines, all of it had had been forgotten. Gas was cheap, consumers were apathetic, and the climate crisis was anything but mainstream. Right now, only 50 percent of people believe that [global warming] is real. You can imagine what it was like 20 years ago.”

But Floyd and her small community set out to educate investors as to the possibilities. It was a forward-thinking proposition, but some saw the opportunity (read: a looming crisis) and a discussion around clean tech and “doable” alternative energy began to take shape. This discussion was broad based, and included both environmentalist concerns as well as ROI to be realized by dealing with national and global energy challenges.

Slowly, things began to change, and as we entered the new millennium, says Floyd, forces subtle and less so had brought some hard realities to consumer (and thus investor) consciousness. From Al Gore to Osama bin Laden, climate and cultural realizations had exposed a powerful new marketplace. For investors, an opportunity for “doing well by doing good” had arrived.

“We were [by 2004] and continue to be at a true inflection point,” says Floyd. “Globally, the status quo is untenable. It’s not a spot crisis any more. Big issues have to be resolved and they represent [market] drivers that will play out over decades. It’s not a matter of politics or tree hugging. This is about national and consumer requirements, and business – not on an ideological level, but on a bottom line level.”

Indeed, green investing seems to have come of age. According to Cleantech Group, 13 percent of all venture capital dollars are now going green – making it the largest sector in VC. Comparing just the last quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of this year, investments in clean-tech deals were up 26 percent (54 percent over the same time period last year). Since January, green companies have raised $1.1 billion, and a accompanying surge in green technology jobs appears to be in the wings. Not bad for a down economy – if it wasn’t clear just a few years ago, it’s clear now: this once “progressive” investment arena has achieved lift-off.

For her part, Floyd is no longer a lone wolf. She is founder and Managing Director of Nth Power, a “nothing else but” green tech venture capital firm focused on “energy technology, materials and other related businesses.” The San Francisco-based group currently manages $420 million that’s invested in 58 companies, including “market leaders” in renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, etc.), energy efficiency, smart grid, clean transportation and green buildings.

And while her efforts clearly target the “doing good” part of the equation, “doing well” for her investors remains paramount. “Our investors are big pensions and corporations,” she points out. “’While we’re differentiated as clean tech, consciousness is a small issue. What they want from us is to look at teams, strategies and execution plans. What’s important is money. And it can be made in clean tech.”

The Game Board – Clean Tech and Double Bottom Line

To understand today’s robust, green equity-investment community, it helps to understand two primary investment angles – “clean tech” and “double bottom line.”

Floyd’s Nth Power is a VC firm dedicated to clean tech. “It” believes that “the way society values and uses energy is in the midst of a significant transformation will lead to the widespread adoption of energy technologies and the creation of new companies led by a new breed of energy entrepreneurs. With the growing consumer demand for reliable, digital quality power, questions regarding the viability (and price volatility) of coal, oil and other fossil fuels, and the growing threat of global climate change, the opportunity for technology innovation in the energy sector has never been greater.”

Quite a mission/vision/pitch. But the bottom line is that there are clean tech markets to be tapped and mastered. Aside from those market leaders mentioned earlier, these also include biofuel, conservation, recycling and waste reduction, sustainable agriculture and manufacturing, and much more.

The other camp, or investment approach, is the much-discussed double bottom line (or triple or quadruple or whatever the case may be). This view says that one should measure the pay off of investments in more than one way: hence the – at least – “double.” Cash return on equity remains the driver, of course. But another measurement might be, say, job creation, or literacy or poverty alleviation – or an environmentally positive impact. (We’ll further explore the broader benefits of double bottom line investing in an upcoming article in this series.)

A perfect example of such a VC firm is DBL Investors, which was created from the spin-off of the Bay Area Equity Fund I from JPMorgan in January 2008. The group’s double bottom line strategy is “to invest in companies with the potential do deliver top-tier venture capital returns while working with [its] companies to enable social, environmental and economic improvement in the regions in which they operate.”

One of the firm’s two Managing Partners is Nancy Pfund. Formerly a Managing Director at JP Morgan, her financial background and focus on wealth creation is matched by her commitment to outcomes such as eliminating poverty. She explains her firm’s relationship with green investing: “Our second bottom line is having a positive impact on the communities where our companies end up doing business. That can be a positive environmental impact, and that can be by creating jobs though clean tech. Many of our companies do many positive things, not just one.”

Her partner, Cynthia Ringo, is formerly a Managing Director of VantagePoint Venture Partners. “We play in the venture capital space, which is of course driven by innovation,” she says. “Any venture capitalist is looking for disruptive companies that will displace incumbents and generate wealth. We also happen to be looking at poverty alleviation – sort of giving a lifeline to people. Clean tech is fantastic at that.”

As it was for Floyd, 2004 was an important transition time for Pfund and Ringo’s double bottom line approach. “Our target was $75 million,” says Pfund. “It took us a few years to do it but we did close in 2004. We had lots and lots of investors, including banks, pension funds, foundations, etc. At that time, clean tech was not what it is today, so we didn’t focus our marketing on that, per se, but we did focus on a broader double bottom line. In the end, though, 60 percent of the fund went toward clean tech.”

Says Ringo: “Clean tech is perhaps the most obvious way to accomplish our mission, because we will not take a reduction in a financial return in order to accomplish a social goal, and this concept is well understood in this sector. The business factors related to clean tech are very strong.”

Raising their second fund in 2008 was even tougher, given the economic environment. “But we just had our final close,” says Pfund. “It was for about $140 million, so we almost doubled the size from the first time around. Part of that is because our focus is now on the Western United States and not just Northern California and the other part is out strong track record. But, still, 50 percent of this fund will be green focused.”

The reasons for success in clean tech investment are increasingly consumer driven, and they’re not just about climate change. “Where’s that consumer pull coming from?” asks Ringo. “Maybe it’s because people want to reduce the amount of money that they’re spending on their utilities or on transportation. Maybe they are concerned about the health impact of certain types of products. Looking back [prior to the changes of the early ‘00s], there was not a lot of consumer pull and those that were making demands were called tree-huggers and other derogatory names like that. It was a much smaller demographic than it is today. Now, if you speak to a panel of mothers who range in age from 25 to 45, how high do you think their concerns around issues of health for their family go? Very.”

Where Angels Come to Play

Whether the focus is in pure clean tech or double bottom line, angel investors are, of course, also in the green mix. By definition, however, these have traditionally been individual players in arena, gathering their own contacts and research to make smart decisions. But one group, Northwest Energy Angels, is taking a pooled intelligence approach to mining these rich opportunities.

The Seattle-based non-profit is a membership organization of private investors that only funds clean tech entrepreneurs. They believe that through such investment they can find “the intersection of our desire to make successful angel investments, our personal values and the world we want to leave our children.” The group is comprised of “seasoned angel investors and venture capitalists, as well as new angels learning by participating in a cooperative and supportive environment” that place “a high value on sustainability, the ecosystems that support life on earth and social responsibility.”

Kiki Tidwell is a leading clean tech angel investor who sits on the Northwest Energy Angels board of directors. Last July, she was admitted to the Kauffman Fellows Program, “a highly sought-after two-year program dedicated exclusively to the world of venture capital and the cultivation of new high-technology, high-growth, high-impact companies.”

Her background leaves little question as to why she’s sought out that clean tech sweet spot where making a profit meets making a difference.

“I was in computers back in 1982, teaching people how to use the first mini-computers,” she recalls. “I was right there during the start up of that industry and to me clean tech has the same vibe. We don’t know what will be the next Microsoft but there will be huge winners. On the philanthropy side, I’ve seen how renewable energy and our tremendous natural resources can have a major impact, especially in rural economic development. (Tidwell has lived in Idaho since 1981 and is the president of the Tidwell Idaho Foundation, as well as Idaho Land & Pine, Inc.)

“When I was serving on the board of the Idaho Community Foundation – the Governor’s Council on Families and Children – I saw these tiny farm communities struggling to meet their social service needs and keep their farms going year round, even when the cost of irrigation pumping runs into the millions. Approaches using geothermal, solar, wind and biomass resources are going to be critical to these farm communities.”

Tidwell says angels face a different investment proposition than VC investors. “I think one of the main differences is that because it’s our own money we [angels] are investing, we have the luxury as to invest in the one out of a hundred opportunities that looks good to us. And we don’t have to deploy capital in a ten-year timeframe. That said, the venture capitalist has resources devoted to understanding some of the issues, as well as more time to devote to helping companies post-investment.”

The point of her group, then, is to deal with some of these issues by promoting clean tech and educating angels around some of the science and business issues that are in play.

“By banding together, we can share a lot of information,” she says. “We have speakers who come in to address specific technologies. We have discussion groups between investors about issues in our portfolio companies. We have presenting companies giving us pitches once a month.”

A Leg Up

Whether it’s clean tech or double bottom line investing, VC or angel money, what was once a cutting edge approach to equity investment is now not only big business – it’s big politics and policy, too.

“It’s a very complex sector,” says Floyd. “There are so many considerations given the policy and regulatory overlay. Federally and globally there are a multitude of regulations to be aware of and, of course, there’s a whole world of incentives out there.”

Mastering these polices, regulations and incentives thus becomes a major value-add for groups like Nth Power and DBL. For green investors, working with the likes of Floyd, Pfund and Ringo is like having the combination of a good agent who knows the people you should know, and a good financial specialist who knows how to work every regulation and incentive detail to your monetary advantage.

DBL realized this early on during their first play. “It started with the first fund and actually morphed into a big idea,” says DBL’s Pfund. “We had to think of what’s in it for a company to site in a low-income neighborhood. And so we thought, well, when you go into these targeted economic zones like Richmond or parts of Oakland [California] you can get benefits in terms of tax treatment or low interest loans or even grants at times. We saw that worked very well, so we kind of layered on other ways to navigate that public/private sector interface to the benefit of both parties.”

This approach is particularly important in the green sector. “You are being watched by everyone from the local chapter of the Sierra Club to the mayor to the governor, and they can either help or hurt your business,” explains Pfund. “Reaching out and embracing that is part of what we advocate; we have been able to show how that’s beneficial and companies end up doing it themselves once they get off the ground.”

Shifting Winds

It’s no secret that this thriving arena has been the beneficiary of a type of affirmative action in recent years, with government playing a helpful role and, in some ways, simply getting out of the way. As the nation has warmed to the notion that Washington and State Capital USA do have roles to play in encouraging clean tech and environmental protection, the flames of this investment community are stoked.

Conversely, as seen during the ’80s, a lack of attention and accompanying incentives can allow those flames to all but die out. And it’s also no secret that there’s clearly a different political climate now than there was just two years ago when Barack Obama took office – and, incidentally, replaced the solar panels on the White House.

Yes, enter the Tea Party and science-deniers and the success of campaigns well-financed by a Supreme Court-loosed, corporate political-giving system that’s hostile to those potentially “disruptive” entrepreneurs that DBL’s Ringo speaks about. Add to that a growing public intolerance for government subsidies – at least for those that are on the agenda of media savvy interests – and, well, what’s a well-meaning, robust-but-still-requiring-incentives investment community to do?

“The pitch of the entire discussion [around green tech and the development of green-friendly business] has to change,” says Pfund. “We have to ask, what’s the subject matter that we’re speaking and thinking about when it comes to green investing? Certainly it’s very political and we get huge questions about the role of the Tea Party or the Republican Congress on a lot of the programs that are subsidizing clean tech. And those are good questions that are not easy to answer, so you have to develop a plan B. Clean tech is cleaner and getting cheaper, but it’s not as cheap as coal and natural gas. We just aren’t there yet, so that’s not the story.

“It gets back to this notion of connectedness,” she says. “I made a speech at Stanford [University] recently on large-scale solar in the deserts and [Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan] George Schultz was in the audience. He more or less said ‘I agree with you but you should ditch the environmental argument and just focus on energy security and our over-dependence on foreign oil.’ He’s not alone in saying that.

“Some Republicans, and some Democrats for that matter, hate the clean tech argument. They like the energy security argument, so he is saying face facts. The Republicans are a potent political force, so we need to speak their language. You do whatever you can to get it sold. And you don’t want to be pigeonholed into saying that this makes sense only from a global warming point of view and have people not want to talk to you. You don’t want to sabotage your argument by making it unnecessarily narrow.”

All told, it’s like any effective marketing strategy. You size up your audience and figure out what will be most appealing message. Says Tidwell, who is particularly interested in smart grid technology, about positioning: “This is not about tree hugging. This is about financial gain for investors, consumer benefit and energy security.”

The Color of Money

In the end, it might be counterintuitive to think mindsets that have been saddled with identifiers ranging from “progressive” (the most diplomatic) to “environmentalist wacko” (dismissive) could not only point to money-making propositions, but to the money making propositions that have the power to drive our economy and national security for decades to come.

Looking back, Ronald Reagan’s (and other “pro-business” leaders like him) commitment to existing enterprise at the expense of entrepreneurial activity was shortsighted on its surface. Forward-thinking government support, if not outright incentive is the cornerstone of what it means to be pro-business. 

For now, the Floyds, Pfunds, Ringos and Tidwells of the world go to sleep dreaming about two kinds of green.

“What I wake up thinking about is what any entrepreneur thinks about,” says Floyd. “The challenges faced by individual young companies.”

Image: quinn.anya

ColumnA crackling fire makes my earth-friendly instincts go up in smoke.

Maybe it’s middle age, or maybe it’s just that I’ve become jaded, but the truth is, very few things surprise me these days. Of course, some things still surprise me: the fact that country music is the most popular radio format in the United States – that was a shocker. And the recent news that Donald Trump is considering a run for the presidency – I didn’t see that coming. But I was also surprised to learn that having a fire in my fireplace is environmentally incorrect – and I really shouldn’t have been.

How could I have failed to realize that smoke – any smoke –  is a respiratory irritant and a known pollutant? On the frequent occasions that my chimney has backed up, I have felt the smoke stinging my eyes and burning my lungs – I have watched my children and guests coughing and retching as they were overwhelmed by thick smoke from a malfunctioning flue. Did that seem like a healthy thing to me? Looking back on winter, I’m appalled at my cluelessness, because I actually thought having a fire in my house was a back-to-nature thing to do – practically organic in its old-time prairie appeal. A raging fire in my family room seemed somehow more eco-friendly than relying on an oil-burning furnace for warmth.

At least that’s what I thought, until The New York Times set me straight, pointing out in a recent article that every fire I made this past winter produced a micro-cloud of pollution, exposing my family and neighbors to a fluorocarbon output equal to roughly a pack and a half of Newport Lights. Not to mention the tiny particles that everyone but me has always had the good sense to consider a health hazard. The American Lung Association has gone so far as to recommend that  consumers avoid wood-burning fires altogether, citing research that names wood stoves and fireplaces as major contributors to particulate-matter air pollution in much of the United States.

How did I not know this, or rather, acknowledge this? To my exceedingly slight credit, I did, at least, cut back on fires this past winter, saving them for really special occasions, like the Super Bowl, or snowstorms, or a cup of hot chocolate on a chilly afternoon. The sad fact is, I simply don’t have the willpower to completely give up that lovely woodsy smell and the single most flattering light a woman my age can be seen in.

Instead, I did what I do best: I stalled. I waited out the winter and let the arrival of spring turn my fire habit into a happy non-issue. This is, to be sure, a passive and not particularly admirable way to right my environmental wrongs. It does not make me look very good, so I comfort myself with the knowledge that my friends are equally flawed when it comes to the environment. There is my friend Dorothy, who spends each winter turning up the thermostat, while simultaneously opening her windows “to maintain a perfect lizard-like body temperature while still enjoying fresh air.” Then there is my friend Eileen, who will admit to having a couple of drinks to lessen her guilt when throwing out cans.

I can’t speak for my friends, but I have vowed to do better in the future – to be smarter, more responsible and more evolved. By next winter I plan to boycott my fireplace and make my house a smoke-free zone.

Cross my hearth and hope to die.

Editor’s Note: Susan Goldberg is a slightly lapsed treehugger. Although known to overuse paper products, she has the best of intentions – and a really small SUV. Catch her column, The Goldberg Variations, each week here at EcoSalon.

Image: snowball.team

QuoteDaily quotes at EcoSalon.

“However fragmented the world, however intense the national rivalries, it is an inexorable fact that we become more interdependent every day. I believe that national sovereignties will shrink in the face of universal interdependence. The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: We are all in the same boat.”

- Jacques Cousteau

image: Jesper Hauge

One year after an explosion that triggered the worst oil spill in history, EcoSalon examines the continuing impact.

“Nine months have passed since the blowout and the rest of the nation has returned to business as usual, but I can assure you that many in the Gulf have not,” wrote Frances Beinecke in January about her experience serving on the National Oil Spill Commission. It is clear much of the ineptness she witnessed on the part of those in the position to steer a new, safer ship, persists across the board  one year after the nightmarish BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

You have to wonder if the continued protests go unnoticed, the worst disaster of its kind smoothed over as old history. Maybe the conventional media news cycle has abandoned New Orleans and the story, but we need updates as Transocean, the firm that ran the Deepwater rig, pats its executives on the back and awards them millions in bonuses after what it calls “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history.”

According to a regulatory filing, the operator boasts that despite the tragic loss of life in the Gulf, its new recorded incident rate and total potential severity rate is “a reflection on our commitment to achieving an incident free environment, all the time, everywhere.” Except we all know accidents happen, right?

Let’s see where we are in the aftermath.

Back to the Grind

As the sun sets on the disaster, it is expected new public outraged will be fueled by BP plans to restart deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico this summer after getting a firm nod from US regulators. Work will be resumed as early as July on 10 wells halted by a moratorium on drilling after the explosion. This is less than 15 months after the disaster.

Wildlife Toll

A surge in deaths among baby dolphins is now being linked to the spill, some 29 oil-covered newborn calves washing up on the northern shore of the Gulf, a higher toll than ever. And it’s not just the dolphins. Five times as many sea turtles, 10 times as many birds and 200 times more marine mammals were injured or killed than what official tallies tell us. This, according to the Centre for Biological Diversity.

Government Gridlock

Congress is sitting on its hands with regard to lasting legislative reforms recommended by President Obama’s National Oil Spill Commission. It had called for an independent safety agency within the Interior Department to overhaul the bureaucratic approach to monitoring the industry. This includes hiking the oil spill liability limit and more spending on regulation paid by fees on industry. They say prospects of passing a remaining Markey bill enacting the recommendations appear dim at the moment.

BP’s Deep Pockets

To the surprise of skeptics, DP has coughed up tens of billions of dollars in fines, cleanup efforts and payments to families of rig workers, and came out smelling like a rose – not just still in business but boasting more cash than before the spill. Thriving means a newly negotiated energy deal in India and Russia and plans to resume that drilling in the Gulf. Dollars spent: $3.6 billion in awards to injured individuals and businesses; $10.7 billion on cleanup (deploying skimming boars, airplanes, floating oil booms and crews tackling oily residue at beaches and swamps. Another $500 million pledged to academic research of the Gulf environs and support for fishing and tourism industries.

Seafood Testing Still a Must

Fish from the contaminated waters will need to be tested for consumption for decades to come, according to scientists studying the maritime disaster effects on commercial and recreational fishing yield – accounting for 5% of products eaten in the U.S. We are told by University of Florida researchers that the human nose is still the best detector of seafood that has been tainted by harmful oil chemicals such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, cancer causing if ingested in high concentrations.

Clean Up White Glove Test a Failure

From a bird’s eye view, the report card isn’t pretty for BP, with descriptions like sloppy and half-ass being bandied about. Research scientists, such as Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia, say about 50% of the oil is still floating around, as depicted in images of an oil-drenched pelican in the Guardian. From her own submarine scaling the Mississippi Canyon, she can attest that it is far from back to normal on the Gulf when the ocean floor is coated in thick dark brown muck and ropes of slime. Crabs and other creatures remaining are listless, unlike the old days when her sub had them scurrying for safety.

More Signs of New Orleans Abandonment

If it’s not bad enough Congress is cutting off termite controls in the French Quarter’s homes and businesses, a pest problem aggravated by Katrina, many other public health problems persist, especially along the coast due to the oil spill. Alliance Institute Executive Director Stephen Bradbury finds there is no access to good health care for respiratory, dermatological and digestive health ailments. Apparently, patients must drive 45 minutes to an hour to find a treatment center.

Spilling over into Consumer Dining Behavior

A study by Technomic finds the  spill and nasty toxic images of wildlife has seafood consumption down at restaurants with 19 percent of consumers eating less fish as much as four months later as a direct result of the disaster. Meantime, thousands of fishermen who have joined the ranks of the unemployed are partnering with agencies and regional commissions to try to resume fishing when possible or find alternative work.

Halliburton Still Unscathed From Fallout

One thing that remains clear in all the muck is that Halliburton continues to slither under the radar, despite acknowledging it skipped doing a critical test on the formulation of its cement used to seal the BP oil well. While earlier tests apparently showed the mix was stable, they never conducted a final safety test and used the mix anyway. Still, Halliburton points to BP well design and operations as the cause of the blowout, even though the cement failed to prevent oil and gas from entering the wells. And what of the cement design? Experts say it was poor since a foam slurry was created by injecting nitrogen into the cement to secure the bottom of the well. Oops. Still, government contract favoritism has its privileges.

A Way of Life Crushed?

In a nutshell, or perhaps clam shell, observers argue a way of life has been crushed due to the spill and its perpetual damage, visible on the wildlife but not always recognizable on the devastated fishermen. Poignantly stated in the Plight of the Louisiana Fishing Family blog,”this reaches far beyond money; we are talking about the possible destruction and ending of a culture.”

Image: Infrogmation; Win Mcnamee

QuoteDaily quotes at EcoSalon.

Increasingly, the world around us looks as if we hated it. – Alan Watts
Image: Lucente Designs